Texas Tech, SPC presidents team up on tour targeting sometimes overlooked rural students

Karen Michael

Saturday

Feb 3, 2018 at 6:43 PM

A few years ago, 15 percent of Texas Tech students were from within 100 miles of Lubbock.

That number, according to Tech President Lawrence Schovanec, has dropped to 12 percent this year.

"It’s a trend that you see less and less representation of West Texas among our student population," he said. "We have to be very proactive in going out there and sending a message that we want them."

When Schovanec was interim president of Tech in 2012-13, he decided he would take a tour of West Texas small towns, asking students to consider Tech.

M. Duane Nellis was named Tech president in 2013, and he discontinued the project.

"I understand that," Schovanec, who stepped back into the Tech provost’s chair at that time, said. A Tech enrollment official at the time had told Schovanec the yield of students would not justify the time.

But when he was named Tech’s president in 2016, he decided he was going to restart the West Texas tour, launching a multi-city regional tour last month, teaming up with his counterpart at South Plains College for part of the tour.

"We’re going to continue to do it," Schovanec said.

While more than 70 percent of Tech students come from more than 300 miles away — many from the Dallas/Fort Worth and Houston metro areas — Schovanec said those who come to Tech are changed by the people and experience of the South Plains.

"It’s the West Texas experience," Schovanec told students at Idalou High. The president said he believes "to his core" that students from West Texas have characteristics that rub off on other students — they are polite, attentive and have a work ethic that will make them successful regardless of whether they go to college.

In the first few schools Schovanec toured in January, including Roosevelt, Idalou and Crosbyton, he was a solo act.

At high schools in New Deal, Abernathy, Floydada, Ralls, Slaton, Post and Tahoka, Schovanec was joined by South Plains College President Robin Satterwhite.

In January, Tech and SPC signed an agreement to encourage open communication between the two institutions, providing students with a transfer pathway for completion of a four-year degree.

Both presidents said the agreement is intended to provide a "seamless transfer" to Tech for SPC students.

Satterwhite told students the duo was taking "a unified approach," but there is just one reason for their partnership: student success.

"We collectively want you to go to college. It’s so important," Satterwhite said, noting 75 percent of the people laid off in the recession of 2008-10 had only a high school degree.

His main message, Satterwhite said, is students should think about going to college, no matter which institution they pick.

"It will make all the difference in the world to you," he said.

On the tour, the presidents expressed support for each other’s institutions.

Texas Tech is a world-class institution, Satterwhite said, and a great place to be. And Tech recognizes that transfer students are great students, he said.

South Plains College, Schovanec said, is a more viable option for some students.

Both presidents also stressed how much they had in common with the rural students.

Satterwhite noted he started out as a college student at SPC, later attending Tech.

Schovanec talked about how he went to a very small school in Oklahoma as one of 12 siblings growing up on a farm. He went to college at Phillips University — which has since closed — and later went to Texas A&M and Indiana University for his master’s degree and doctorate, respectively.

Message received

Students and staff at some of the towns on this year’s tour were mystified that two higher education presidents turned up — but grateful, as well. In four of the 10 tour stops attended by A-J Media, students were very attentive. Phones were nowhere to be seen. Every student seemed to be listening intently to the presentations, even at schools such as Ralls, where even younger students like eighth-graders were included in the audience.

Malachi Loredo is a junior at Abernathy High School. He said he feels like he knows more about the opportunities for transferring from SPC to Tech now, and he said he hopes that made an impression on all of his classmates who don’t believe they can go to college.

The fact that the two presidents made the trip shows they are interested in small-town schools and students, Loredo said.

"It means a lot to us," he said.

Juwan Hamilton said the college visitation was really needed at Tahoka High School.

"A lot of us need to go to college," Hamilton said.

Schovanec’s willingness to tell students about his own background also impressed Hamilton.

"It makes you feel better about actually coming to a school like this, because people here probably don’t think that they can because we’re a small school," Hamilton said. "It gave me more confidence" about going off to college.

Krista Camargo, also a senior at Tahoka, said she really wants to go to Tech, but as a prospective first-generation college student, she has heard going to South Plains College could be easier. But she said she was encouraged by Schovanec’s personal story.

"He said he comes from a lot of brothers and sisters, and his mom and dad made sure he went to college. I have a ton of brothers and sisters, too, just like him," she said, noting she wants to be the first in her family to go to college.

Like many first-generation students looking to go to college, Camargo said the application process is overwhelming. But she remains committed to the idea of going to Tech, even if she goes to SPC first.

In Abernathy, Kalli DuBose has "always" been encouraged by her parents to go to college — her father is a former Tech football player.

Her parents have told her, she said, "With the growing population, it’s almost necessary to get a college degree in order to get a good job."

But until recently, she thought she would go to West Texas A&M.

"Here recently, I’ve been like, well, Tech is just so convenient, and it’s right there," DuBose said. "I want to be a part of the ag department, and the ag department at Tech is amazing."

Seeing the Tech and SPC presidents in person was "really cool," she said, noting she doesn’t even know who the presidents are at other colleges she has considered.

DuBose is currently taking dual-credit courses through SPC and was encouraged by the cooperation shown between Tech and SPC.

"That was nice to know that a lot of my classes would transfer to Tech," she said.

Teachers and administrators at the schools were just as surprised to see Schovanec and Satterwhite in their high school auditoriums.

Tahoka High Athletic Director Stephen Overstreet said sometimes students have a narrow view of what they are able to accomplish. Perhaps someone at home is not supportive, or perhaps they get a message from the world that they cannot be successful. The West Texas tour may have helped a few students feel that they could succeed, and that they were important enough that college leaders made a point to come see them, he said. As an educator and during his time as a student in West Texas, he said he has never seen anything like the presidents’ tour.

"Dr. Schovanec talks about over 25,000 kids at Texas Tech, and he sits in an auditorium here with about 60 juniors and seniors combined. That’s pretty impressive that a man of that magnitude and stature would take his time to come out and address such a small group," Overstreet said.

Lana Martinez, a guidance counselor at Tahoka, said the visit gave students some hope, especially because the presidents shared that they had similar beginnings.

"Just because they’re from a small town and a big family and they don’t have a lot of money, they can do whatever they want. I think it encouraged them," Martinez said.

Miguel Salazar, principal at Ralls High School, said there are just 31 students in the senior class. He said the tour sent a message to students that colleges and universities care about them and their attendance in college.

Salazar said he was a first-generation student, and he knows that many first gens in Ralls lack knowledge of what steps are necessary to attend college.

But he said a lot of conversations will start because the two leaders came to the school. While his students didn’t ask a lot of questions of the duo, he said he knows they will ask more questions over the next few weeks of him and his staff.

Like Satterwhite, Salazar said he personally started at SPC and transferred to Tech, finding that it helped him acclimate to college life to go to the community college first.

"By the time I got to Tech, I knew my first step is, find my adviser and they could answer any question I had and get me on the right path," Salazar said.

In his office Thursday, the day after the last West Texas tour date, Schovanec said he hopes he planted seeds in a few students’ heads about going to college. Higher education isn’t for everyone, he said, and some students will be very successful without any further education.

"But I get the sense that many are intimidated by the thought of not only going to a university, but going to Texas Tech. And I would hate for students in our backyard to think this was not an inviting or welcoming place," Schovanec said.

Although there is that factor of making sure West Texas people are among the students at Tech, there is a bigger goal to consider. The Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board has set a goal that by 2030, 60 percent of all Texans between ages 25 and 34 will have either a certificate, associate’s degree or bachelor’s degree.

"That’s because it’s important for Texas," Schovanec said, noting that the coordinating board consists largely of businesspeople who know Texas needs an educated, skilled workforce. "To achieve that goal, you’re going to have to recruit from populations that have traditionally been under-represented, and that is first generation, Hispanic and students of color. When you go to those (West Texas) communities, you really see how diverse their populations are."

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